Just a Good Book
by Lt. Commander Richie
Summary: Postwar futurefic. NYU student Rachel Leon has a secret. Once upon a time she found a Bookman's log books in the NY Public Library. But that's not the secret- her best friends have been dead a hundred fifty years and she might be the last Exorcist alive.
1. Chapter 1

**Just a Good Book**

_Lt. Commander Richie_

**Disclaimer: **This is a ONE-SHOT. NO MORE, NO LESS. So of course I don't own Lavi or the New York Public Library, or anything else recognizeable in here. But Rachel is mine brainchild, so please to not being touching.

* * *

Rachel Leon was tired. Tired tired tired, ready to go flop down in a seat somewhere and konk out for a good four hours. But she couldn't, she wouldn't dare, and she loved what she was doing even more than sleeping. Carefully, the nineteen-year-old college student slid a book older than her Grandfather and worth more than her apartment back into its place on the shelf in the Historic Books section of the New York Public Library. Yes, the smell of old paper and the look of old books made her energetic beyond belief.

But that didn't mean she wasn't still ready to drop.

The poor girl had had three tests that day, one after the other after the other in her three major credit courses. The Trig one had been easy enough with the help of her handy-dandy calculator, and the Biochemistry one was carefully studied for until she couldn't remember a single thing more. Her European History test, however, had needed no studying. Since she had landed her job at the Public Library she had done nothing but absorb the information in the history section until she could tell you any part of history from any point of view. Needless to say, her History grade was what was nearly guaranteeing her place as Valedictorian… If she survived until Senior year.

"How many books do you have left, honey?" A portly old wrinkled woman, barely tall enough to push the book carts, peeked around the end corner of the bookshelf. Her glasses were studded with rhinestones today, and sparkled in the overhead lights.

"Not too many, Ma'am." Rachel replied, smiling kindly to the old woman before picking up the library's original Gutenberg Bible and carefully placing it in its specific place. With that done, the teen pulled off one latex glove and brushed short red hair behind her ear. "I should be done in a few minutes."

"You can take your break when you're done then, you should have taken it an hour ago." With a dentured grin, the old woman had toddled off towards the Tax Law section. Rachel burst into a grin and quickly pulled her glove back on, carefully but quickly grabbing up an original copy of Dracula and setting it in its place before continuing down the aisle to put away a script of Othello and volumes four and seven of an ancient Pope's detailing of demons and where they had been bound. She continued on to put away the other books before stowing the empty cart away by the front desk and breaking into a dance. Several library patrons looked at her funny, but Rachel didn't care.

In a heartbeat the latex gloves were in the trash, their former wearer speed-walking towards her favorite section of the Historic Books section, the history books. It seemed a bit redundant or even futile to be reading ancient history books about ancient history, but to Rachel the floppy leather covers of the best accounts and their simple script were well worth it. With a smile the redhead turned down an aisle and made her way to the solid bookshelf of plain brown leather covers that she loved so much. Her grin didn't falter as she bent down and selected one, a small 49 stamped onto the very bottom of the spine by the original writer. She hugged the book to her chest and sat down against the bookshelf across from the row of plain history books, crossing her legs with a squeak of her Converse soles against the linoleum. With steady fingers Rachel opened the book to the very back, and carefully opened the back cover to pull out a long folded piece of paper.

Rachel had discovered the secret of the history books marked with a 49 about three months previous… That after number four they all had secret backs to them and that each one had small mementos of a previous life and an account of the same happenings in the book they were hidden in that had so much more life, and depth, and personality to them. It was almost as though whoever was writing had had two things to uphold… A record that remained impassive and a duty to friends that didn't want to be broken.

_Gramps almost caught me writing this, but I managed to keep it hidden. He doesn't think it's right that a real record should be kept of any part of a person's life, only the things that they do that can affect history. I don't care, though. Doing this is like proving that I can be myself. Like I am not just Bookman, but that I'm also Lavi. I'm also myself. Being with the Exorcists has taught me that I'm human. That I'm just like everyone else and that it doesn't matter if I've only got one eye or that I'm a stupid rabbit._

Rachel's smile waned from one of anticipation to one of kindness, one of total contentment as she continued to read.

_Allen's changed recently. His hair's longer, he's much more serious even though he's constantly being shadowed by Central, and it's almost as though he's trying to take the world on his shoulders. But he shouldn't have to, after all we're all buddies! We have to deal with him, so he should have to deal with us... Even if his hair looks like a duck's ass when he releases Crowned Clown. Miranda and Krory are fine like always, but Marie's too scared to say just about anything to Miranda. I'd think the two would be happily snuggling and jumping in front of bullets for each other by now, what with all the glances she's been giving him behind his back. But nooooo, they both have to be moore stuck up than Yuu. _

In a way, Rachel knew that nothing on these secret pages was forced. Quite the contrary, actually. When she had first read through all the old history books she had loved them, finding the easy-to-understand words as interesting as the things that the books said.

_Speaking of Yuu... I wonder how many petals he has left. Guy like him... Just because he can't get hurt doesn't mean he shouldn't fix the hole in his window! Dammit Kanda, I'll draw all over your face if you don't replace that window pane! Your girly looks will be forever marred with the Bookman's permanent ink!_

Bookman... That was a term that confused Rachel to no end. It didn't matter how many of the old history books she read, there were no references to bookmen or anyone named Bookman. She had searched online, she had searched the college's reference library... She had even tried asking. But there were no answers.

_Pages 47 through 51 in the log book, the mission to the Alps? Disregard everything I wrote there. It's not fair to anyone, it's only fair to the truth. The truth is all fine and dandy, but it isn't the same as a human account. A truthful account of facts and reason doesn't tell stories, doesn't record injuries or feelings... Lenalee almost got killed on that mission. Almost isn't good enough for a log book, though. She either died or she didn't. No gray area between the two._

Carefully, Rachel leaned forward without letting the paper hit the ground and pulled the fifth in the series with 49 on the spine out of the bookshelf and opened it to the back cover. She carefully reached inside and pulled out a very, very old photo. It was an overexposed sepia with a torn corner and punched edges, careful creases marring it as tough the original owner had kept it close at all times. From what Rachel knew of Lavi, the writer of the series with the 49 on it... That was probably true.

From the page the smiling faces of Allen, Lavi, Lenalee and Krory beamed up, along with the frowns of Miranda andGramps and the scowl of Yuu Kanda. They all looked so happy, their black and white uniforms so well-kept and the Rose Cross on their chests all shining in the light at the time. They were all happy kids, all happy Exorcists.

_With Lenalee in mind, I gotta say this: Man is she ever pretty. I mean, she was pretty before with the pigtails and the adorable and the definite unattainability that came with Komui being a crazy older sibling... But now she's gorgeous. If the face of Helen of Troy launched a thousand ships, then Lenalee's could launch every navy in the world. Her hair's longer now, just about as long as mine and makes her eyes looks so pretty it's just... Er, This is totally a private journal but that's too much of a run-on tangent even for me._

Rachel smiled and laughed in happiness, and carefullyhid the picture in the back of book five before sliding the book back into its proper place. Then she grabbed book seventeen, the final one in the series with 49 on the spine, and opened it to the back. From the secret cover she drew a large photo that was pristine save for a single crease down the middle, everyone's faces a little haggard looking but nonetheless still happy. In the bottom corner, in careful script matching the handwriting in the the long books, was a simple sentence.

_We Won._

On the back of the picture was a series of signatures, each accompanied by a single wish. There was Allen's haphazard scrawl, saying that he wanted everyone happy. Kanda's angry-looking Japanese in the corner was illegible to Rachel since she had only ever taken Spanish as a foreign language, but it was accompanied by someone's script saying "Whine Whine Whine, Yuu-chan, you need to find yourself a girl!"

Carefully, so as to not rip anything, Rachel folded the long piece of paper back up and put it back into the hidden back of the first book she had picked out. She put the book away and focused her attention on book seventeen, laying the picture on the cover with precision before placing both hands on top. In her lap, the book began to glow and emit a green smoke that quickly got thicker but didn't rise above her head height.

This was her secret, why it was she was getting such good grades in History. Because of a little cross-shaped mark she had on the tip of each finger, she could make anything in a book come to life. During her History Class' unit on the Roman Emperors, she had brought back Julius Caesar and had conversed with him in broken Latin until she knew everything she had ever needed to know about the time period.

In front of her, a shape began to form. A torso came first, followed by arms and legs all sprawled about like a typical teen without a care. The smoke flowed upwards to create a head of unruly hair bound back by a headband with a large X on it, and as finer features were crafted hoop earrings, a scarf and an eyepatch came into being.

Rachel smiled... He was her favorite person to talk to.

"Hello, Lavi." She grinned, and rested her hands carefully by her sides. "What do you want to talk about today?"

* * *

**Terp was complaining about a lack of good D.Gray-Man fiction to read yesterday, so I wrote her this in a sudden bout of inspiration that's actually been cooking like Meningitis for about two weeks.**

**So yeah... Fun tiem b nao? Review tiem b nao?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Just a Good Book**

_Lt. Commander Richie_

**Disclaimer: **So someone asked nicely for me to write a second chapter. Once they said it I got an idea and couldn't refuse.

_Chapter 2_

* * *

_Evil, its most defined form, is still objective. Ask Julius Caesar, he will tell you that Brutus is evil because of the manner of his death. Ask Adolf Hitler and he will tell you that any race beyond that of the Aryan is to be destroyed. Ask President Kennedy and he would tell you that it is the Athiestic Russian Communists that are the true threat. Evil, in its purest form, depends upon the eye of the beholder. Unless even the perpetrator knows that what they are doing is wrong, each side will think that they are doing right. This of course brings into the equation the idea of the comedic supervillain. They know what they are doing is wrong, yet they still do it simply because it is evil. So let me ask you this, is 'evil' truly being fought against when battled? If each side believes that they are in the right and the other is evil, is there really any 'evil' at all?_

_

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_

"What do you know about evil?" It was cold outside. There was snow on the ground, the roads were salted and the cabbies were just as angry as they usually were but with a side of Merry Christmas. Rachel was bundled up tightly, her bright orange scarf wrapped up to her nose and earmuffs over her ears. Her red and blond hair was held up with a black and green headband, and her boots laced all the way up to her knees.

"Not much, I guess." The boy across from her was a kind one, a smile on his face and his hands grasping his crossed feet as he sat on the linoleum floor. "On the subject of evil, I've only ever known battle against the Earl and his Akuma."

"But would anyone believe that saga?" The boy, Allen, put an ethereal hand to his chin and looked up towards the ceiling. Across from him, her nose a rosy red color and just barely peeking out from over her scarf, Rachel sneezed.

"You're sick!" Allen exclaimed, suddenly concerned. Rachel shook her head, making sure to keep her hands on the Log book in her lap. She couldn't be sick, that would mean she would have to take time off work, maybe take time off school, which would mean she would miss her History class...

"No I'm not!" She insisted, but her statement was punctuated with another sneeze. She tucked herself deeper into her winter clothing, now only her eyes showing between her headband and scarf. "I can't be sick. Someone must be talking about me. You were saying something about the Earl? Would anyone believe that story?"

"Why?" The way Allen cocked his head to the side nearly made Rachel bound forward and glomp him into the bookshelf, but she didn't. That would mean she would have to move, and moving was not something she wanted to do. It was too cold to do that.

"I've got to write a paper on what can be determined as evil." Rachel mumbled out of her scarf. "I don't wanna do it though, it's too objective of a topic." Allen laughed so hard at her statement that he clutched his sides and doubled over. The redhead glared at the teen across from her. "That's what Yuu-chan did too." Allen only laughed harder, now laying on the ground. "Either tell me what's so funny or you go back into the book!"

"I'm-" Allen gasped for air, still chuckling a bit. "I'm sorry! It's just-" he gasped for air again, "it's just that you look like Lavi as a woman!" With that, Allen burst into laughter again. Rachel snickered a little bit, but then her gaze was steely.

"Are you going to stop laughing yet? I need help on this paper, whether I want to write it or not." Her muffled voice was somewhat angry as she waited for Allen to quiet down. As his final giggles escaped him, he managed to sit back upright.

"The war with the Earl was a secret one." The Exorcist began, his voice taking on a serious tone. "I doubt that there are any public records of it. They would be treated as historical fiction by the general populace, though. It's not that believable that someone can bring people back from the dead as monsters." In a rustle of fabric and a sudden slight flash, Allen was garbed all in white with a mask at his neck and a large furry hood. His black hand with the cross was now adorned with massive claws and metal rings, and Rachel's eyes widened at the sight. "But then again," Allen began, "I doubt much of anything about the Innocence is believable."

"Thank you, Allen." Rachel's back straightened and she rose from her warm and fuzzy nest of scarf and jacket, her entire face exposed. Her smile was wide and happy, full of wonder at seeing the teen's Crown Clown activated.

"Don't overexert yourself. You'll get even sicker." In a wisp of green, he was gone. Rachel continued to smile as she stood, the final part of the 49th Log carefully held in her nearly-numb bare fingers. She carefully put the book away and then turned down another aisle, searching for something. The library's records were down in the historic section as well, all the way up until about 1920. Coming to the correct aisle, the redhead put on a small smile and quickly found the employment records for the year of 1897. In a flick the book was open, and her fingers were splayed across a page. In an instant her powers began to work. Green smoke issued out from the book, falling to the floor like water. It flowed forward and then up, however, taking the shape of a very pretty older woman in a high-collared dress and glasses.

"Can you tell me if there are any books in the library pertaining to the Millennium Earl?" Rachel asked, smiling kindly at the librarian of years past. The woman returned the smile and nodded, her Victorian-style boots clicking on the linoleum floor as she began to walk.

"Follow me. They should be around here somewhere." Rachel nodded, silently following. Three aisles later, the librarian spoke once more. "What are you doing with these books?"

"I have to write a paper that I don't really want to write." The redhead said, not taking her hand off the book she held. The librarian nodded, looking up and down the aisle once more before turning to the college student that had summoned her.

"I'm sorry dear, but this is the extent of my knowledge. Any farther and I'm afraid that the books are just a bit too new." Rachel nodded and took her hand off the book she held, the librarian from days gone by disappearing into a wisp. She sighed, her hands falling to her sides. She couldn't ask Bookman, she was at odds with him after a slightly angry debate the two had gotten into over bias in the works of previous Bookmen. The only reason it wasn't an argument was because neither of them raised their voices and only civil terms were ever used. In a cold huff, Rachel flopped to the floor and crossed her arms and legs.

This was just great. She certainly hadn't meant to procrastinate on that paper, but that set of books on World War Two had looked so enticing and wouldn't you know it, here she was a week later knowing more about the war and had nothing written for her paper to show for it. She didn't regret spending the whole week learning, but if her grades fell she'd have hell to pay. Quite literally, actually; if she didn't keep her average at an A she would loose her total scholarship and she certainly couldn't pay for school on her current salary.

"Frigging great." The redhead muttered, her eyes venomous slits of angry green that glared at the shelf across from her with a want to take every single one and re-arrange them so they couldn't be figured out. "I've already asked Hitler and Julius Caesar... and Jesus Christ, I'm talking to myself. I thought it was bad enough that I talked to dead people! Now my only intelligent conversation when I'm not being the kid from the Sixth Sense is with myself. Splendid."

* * *

_In my quest for finding the ultimate form of evil, as it's put, I did a rather extensive amount of research. During World War Two, anyone in America would have thought that it was the Japanese, or the Germans, or the Italians that were evil. But those same people didn't think of what they had done as evil, and there really is no true and defined line between good and evil, black and white, colored spandex and bald men with Persian cats and wing-backed armchairs. However, I didn't think this all along. At one point I held true to the romanticism that there is a definitive line between the two, that you'll be saved by the good guys and attacked by the bad guys. But I met someone that I really did not expect about a day before this paper was due and he gave me a new perspective._

_

* * *

  
_

It dawned on Rachel about ten minutes of grousing later that one of Lavi's Log books had an illustration of the Millennium Earl in it. In a mad scramble she stood and ran to put the old work log back, then bolted to the near wall of history books she loved so much. From it she grabbed the second in the series, hurriedly flipping it open after a quick glance at her watch. Her bare fingers found the hand-drawn illustration on the open page she stopped at and held still, the redhead contemplating.

The illustration, though comical, held connotations that Rachel wasn't too sure she wanted to deal with. The Earl's visage was disgustingly warped into a rigor grin, much like the Joker of the Batman comics. His ears were large and pointed, and his eyes were hidden behind small glasses. Though he looked like a fairytale creature, Rachel didn't want to animate him. In a book it was one thing to see something so... Monstrous, but in real life it was another thing entirely.

Audibly, the redhead gulped. She sat back against the nearest bookshelf behind her, and peered intently down at the page her bare fingers splayed across. Her nail beds were turning a slightly sickly-looking shade of purpleish blue, but then again they were usually like that. With a sigh she _swore _she could see, Rachel closed her eyes and let her power take action. Though she couldn't see the mist fall from the Log pages and pool on the floor, she felt it quickly take shape into what she hoped would be something not too terribly frightening.

"Good evening! Or at least I think it's evening... Do you have the time, my dear?" Rachel didn't dare open her eyes, afraid of what she might see. She had never tried to resurrect something that wasn't either human or animal before, and the Millennium Earl, in her opinion, looked almost like a cross between the two.

"Seven forty-five." Rachel said tersely, still not opening her eyes.

"Is something the matter?" The tone was cheerful, and it sounded like it certainly couldn't come from the man in front of her... Rachel opened her eyes but kept them glued to the book her fingers rested on.

"What do you know about evil?" Her voice was terse and clipped, and the Millennium Earl couldn't help but laugh. The redhead that sat on the linoleum kept her eyes glued to the book she held, but they wavered towards the fat man's shoes.

"I know a lot of things about evil, little one." With a plop, the fat man sat himself down across from her and sat his large gloved hands on his crossed ankles. "Is there something specific you would like to know?"

"Allen told me that you wanted to destroy the world because you were evil. Why take advantage of the grief of the people? Why destroy the world? It seems rather clichéd to me." The Millennium Earl's laughter died out, and for the first time _ever_ Rachel felt her power act on its own. The Earl's form shifted, the fat and the rigor grin and the large hands dissolving away into unshaped mist to form an old man with a top hat and monocle that wore an expensive suit. The redhead's gaze quickly shifted, her earmuffs falling from her ears to hang around her neck as she stared at the old man.

"How did you-" she began, but the Millennium Earl held up a hand and she paused.

"Your Innocence doesn't simply make a corporeal form from writing on a page or a picture. In the case of actual people, the souls are brought back. A very useful Parasitic-type, the _Ink Speaker _is. I searched for years for it before I was preoccupied by the Fourteenth." Rachel gaped at the man, her gaze shifting down to her fingers and their blue nailbeds. She had known since she learned about the Innocence that the crosses on the tips of her fingers were Innocence, but had only thought that the extent was creating. Not temporary resurrection. The redhead shook her head, one of her blond streaks falling in her face. She blew it out of the way, though it only joined back up with the lock of hair that was falling out of the bottom of her headband in between her eyes.

"You didn't answer the question." She said, her eyes narrowing by only the slightest degree. She had brought back the Earl of the Millennium without knowing the extent of her powers. Lavi, Allen and Lenalee would probably want to strangle her the next time she used her power to talk with them because of it, but that was only if she survived this encounter. She supposed the green smoke figure couldn't really hurt her, since she had at one point been attacked by Attila the Hun to no success, but there was no guaranteeing.

"So I didn't." The Earl shifted his position to a more comfortable one, his top hat tipped just slightly over his face so that the rest of it fell into an indiscernible shadow. "What would you like to know?"

"Everything." Rachel paused, her eyes going back to her fingers and their blue nailbeds. She captured a bit of her scarf in her mouth and nibbled softly. "Why you did it. Why you lost. Why you thought that destroying the world was right." The Millennium Earl looked thoughtful for a moment, and he took his monocle from his eye and buffed it on one of the lapels of his double-breasted suit before replacing it and speaking.

"Tyki-pet would love you. You're just like that boy with the eyepatch." The redhead, had she had a free hand, would have smacked it to her forehead and drug it town her face.

"I get that a lot. I suppose I just hang around him too much." She settled with an accusatory blink and look. "Now you were going to answer the question?" The laugh that the Earl gave her was a kind one, not mocking in the least.

"You have a way with getting back to the point, don't you?" He asked, and Rachel shot a glare across the aisle.

"It comes with having this paper being due in just a little less than twelve hours." She snapped, considering for a moment the idea of simply lifting her fingers from the Log book and going back to asking other people. The Millennium Earl could wait. "Now, why did you think it was right?"

"I recognize that from a certain standpoint what I was doing to the world could be considered evil." The Earl began, his fingers joined in front of his face as he talked. Rachel raised an eyebrow at the old man he appeared to be, but remained respectfully quiet. "But I did not do what I did with a light heart or unburdened conscience. I only regret that my plans did not come to fruition so that the human race would no longer suffer." The man paused, and his monocle dropped to hit his double-breasted suit and hang. "That is what I know of evil. It isn't much, I suppose, but I truly hope it helps you."

Rachel furrowed her eyebrows, her slightly blue lips pursing as she looked down not at her fingers and the magic they worked but at the illustration she had brought to life. The description of the Millennium Earl given with the depiction made it seem as thought he did it simply for fun. Lavi, it seemed, maybe hadn't had the whole story. Maybe.

"Then you viewed yourself as evil, and you felt for the people you had a hand in killing, but you still continued?" She asked, her voice somber. The green and black striped headband the redhead wore was slowly but surely slipping down over her ears, obscuring her eyes. If she didn't remove her hands from the book, it would fall around her neck and all her hair would fall in her face.

"I always had the upper hand in the secret war with the Black Order, little one. I could have continued at any time if I chose so, but I believe it was my compassion for humans that both drove me to annihilate them and to stay my hand." The Millennium Earl was solemn as he spoke, his voice a careful tone. Rachel's brow furrowed, and her headband slipped off of her ears and fell around her neck with her earmuffs. All her hair flopped in her face, red and blond getting everywhere. She shook her hair, but it didn't leave her field of vision. The redhead sighed, and her hair puffed outward.

"So then, evil is in the eye of the beholder?" She could barely see it, but the Earl nodded. "I guess you're right. I never thought of it that way. I've always adhered to the idea, no matter how small, that the good guys fight evil and the bad guys fight good. Like some sort of universal constant, ya know?" Again, the Earl nodded. The smoke figure got to his feet and brushed himself off before replacing his monocle onto his eye.

"I do understand. I'm glad that I can still be of some service to the human race, little one." Rachel gaped as the power she had known she had control over, the idea that if she took her hands off the book then the person would disappear, failed. The green smoke that comprised the Earl of the Millennium simply turned into no more than a few wisps. The redhead quickly pulled her hands from the book and inspected her fingertips on one hand, brushing hair behind her ear with the other. Was she really calling souls back instead of just making constructs that could tell her the contents of a book or the contents of the writer's life? If that was true, then she had really talked to Adolph Hitler, had really talked to General Yamamoto, had really talked to Julius Caesar and JFK and J.R.R. Tolkien.

The book fell out of Rachel's lap, and she scrambled to pick it up with a broad smile on her face as she shut it quickly and hugged it tightly. History really was beautiful, despite the people that she could bring back.

* * *

_The man's name was Millennium, though I highly doubt that that was his real name. He looked almost like an old Bond villain, with the top hat and the suit and the way he leaned back and spoke at you from the shadow of the hat's brim and from behind his steepled fingers. But what he said to me opened up a new light in my thinking. Evil in its most defined form, he said in a roundabout way, was no more than the views of the people on the outside looking in. The people on the inside, as we all are and yet aren't, can see something as just or unjust depending on our view of just what it is the person committing the act is doing. In short, evil is really in the eye of the beholder. I said before that President Kennedy would say that it was the Russian Communists that are the evil, but what about from the view of the Communists? They would say that the Capitalists are evil because Capitalism stands against all that Communism stands for. I won't say that I enjoyed the idea of writing this paper. In fact, I put it off until the night before simply because I didn't want to write about it. The question of evil is too objective, and now I really know why. So I thank Mr. Millennium, though I may not agree with everything he's done._

_

* * *

_

**So I just finished my AP US History final. I thought the timing was appropriate. I also wrote the Earl's really long lines at midnight in the note app on my phone and slowly but surely translated them over word for word. Nothing like a full keyboard and an idea, eh?  
**

**If I ever write more to this (you never know, I just might) I think I'll have to actually start up a plot or something. Not that I want to. Blegh. Plot. Nasty stuff, that is.**

**So yeah, you asked for the damn second chapter so you had better review it or I swear to god I'm not writing another chapter more.  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**Just a Good Book**

_Lt. Commander Richie_

**Disclaimer: **With the rousing amount of reviews this has gotten, I couldn't help but follow my little Goa'uld muse and just keep writing. Curse you, you little System Lord snakehead. Curse you.

_Chapter 3

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_

Her hair and books splayed around her head like a red and yellow and white halo, Rachel Leon laid on her bed. She wore a brown tank top with the Final Fantasy Seven SOLDIER logo on it and a pair of blue cotton shorts, her legs totally bare until it hit the pair of bright orange socks with chili peppers on them at her ankles. A green and blue penguin-print bra peeked out from the edges of the tank top, and the shorts were a bit short. Around her shoulders was nestled a big green blanket with a curling design across it, and she idly itched her shin with one foot. One of her hands, fingernails slightly blue despite the warmth of the room, reached out and alighted on the corner of a picture. It was the one from the back of the final Log Book, carefully creased only down the center. The picture began to leak green smoke, pouring across the bed and falling to the floor.

"One more time." As soon as the form of Yuu Kanda materialized completely, Rachel took her hand off the picture. The image wavered for a moment, and lost a bit of detail.

"Would you stop it? I'm not an experiment!" Kanda, irate since this was the seventeenth time in two hours that he had been pulled back from beyond and nearly sent back, was just about ready to pull Mugen on her. Rachel held her hand out steady as she pushed herself up to a sitting position, fixing the Japanese teen with a big watery green _look _complete with half-lidded eyes and a pouty lip. Kanda took in the _look_, then managed to notice that she was a little bit lacking in the clothing department. "What the hell, woman!? Put some clothes on!" The green construct promptly reeled back and covered his eyes with an arm, mortified.

"I'm wearing plenty of clothes, Bakanda." As if to illustrate the fact, Rachel itched at her stomach with her free hand and exposed a bit more skin. The redhead grinned maliciously as the Japanese Exorcist promptly turned around and looked up at the ceiling. Silence passed between the two of them as the college student pulled herself into a cross-legged position, carefully lowering her raised hand. Kanda's image wavered for a moment, before sharpening back into its original perfect construct.

"Your control is better." Kanda paused for a moment, fidgeting with the knotted rope around the handle of his Mugen. "Even if it _is _over a stupid ability."

"The Earl wanted it. It's not too stupid if he thought it was a threat." Rachel blew a red and blond lock of hair out of her face, her back hunching as she sat her elbows on her knees and her hands in her lap. "Yours is cooler, though. Everyone else's are. I bring things in books to life, but you guys had mallets that controlled nature and boots that let you fly and swords that controlled illusions and conducted massive power and could pull your freaking arms off to make swords." With a sigh, the redhead laughed. It was kind of bitter, but not terribly. "If I had the right training, if this was still wartime, maybe I'd be able to do amazing things with the _Ink Speaker_. I don't and can't, though. I bring people back from the dead so I can get a good history grade."

"You shouldn't want to be part of our war." Rachel cocked her head to the side slightly as Kanda turned around, a finger pointed at her. "You should probably be thankful you were born after we did all the hard work. It's just bad luck that you managed to be born with a parasite-type! Hell, you shouldn't even know about our war!" Towards the end of his tirade the swordsman began to really yell, his short temper having come to an end. The redhead his attentions were focused on gave him a slightly sad smile, and his hand went to the handle of his katana. "And stop smiling at me, you goddamn stupid rabbit!"

"I'm smarter than Yuu!" Rachel retorted, sitting up on her knees to make herself almost as tall as the Japanese teen. She didn't blink as the tip of a nearly-incorporeal sword stopped just in front of her nose.

"I'll cut you." He ground out, his eyes narrowed. The redhead put a single finger up to each side of her head pointing up like ears, and stuck out her tongue. The two were at a total stalemate.

"You can't, you're made of smoke." She said, only pulling her tongue into her mouth long enough to speak before sticking it out again. "Besides, you don't hurt your comrades."

"You're not my comrade. You haven't fought in any war, and you never should." Rachel sat back, assuming a cross-legged position once again. She drug her blanket back up around her shoulders despite the coziness of the room, slouching over and blowing a lock of hair out of her face. As her concentration wavered just a little bit, Kanda began to fade.

"The Earl told me that I don't just create, I bring souls back in the case of real living people. He could manipulate his own form when I brought him back- all it takes after I bring you back is concentration on your part." The redhead flopped onto her back, itching idly at her stomach where a _slight_ rash was forming because of her _slight _Cranberry allergy.

"And you listen to the Earl?" Kanda sheathed Mugen after seeing no other option since it would be silly to stand around holding a sword, and finally sat down on the edge of the bedspread with the slightest crinkle of the sheets. He stared out the window, even though it was half-covered by venetian blinds, and sighed. His form became a little more corporeal, just a little bit sharper, but he was still green and slightly see-through.

"He's dead, he's got nothing left to loose. Besides, how else did he manipulate my powers without my wanting him to unless I brought the actual soul back and not just a construct with all the memories and traits?" Rachel rolled over, wrapping herself up in the blanket as she did so. The swirling pattern managed to get lost among the downy sheets as she rolled over her school books to come to rest in her large pile of pillows. _Julius Caesar_ sported a brand new crease halfway across seven pages.

"You're changing the subject. Why do you want to be part of our war?" The redhead wrapped in the blanket sat up and all that was visible of her besides her lower thighs and legs was her eyes and hair. The tube of blanket made a motion that looked a bit like a shrug.

"My whole life I get the feeling like I was born in the wrong century. I wanna do something with my life that doesn't involve lots of learning just so I can be a productive member of society. I have power and I wanna use it! It just doesn't seem fair that after all this time I've been given an Innocence just to find out that the war it was used for is over." The blankets struggled for a minute before Rachel laid back down and rolled herself back out of them. Kanda reeled back and covered his eyes with one hand once she had freed herself- her brown SOLDIER tank top had managed to ride up to expose her penguin-print bra. The redhead quickly pulled the shirt back down.

"So pretend." Rachel blinked owlishly up at the Japanese teen, large green eyes curious. She tried to tilt her head to one side, but all that did was charge her hair with a bit more static. The ends of her choppy locks were already starting to defy gravity like they had been rubbed with a balloon. "You already look like him, so make like that stupid rabbit and just pretend to be an Exorcist."

"But Lavi wasn't pretending to be an Exorcist-" Rachel began, only to be cut off.

"Yeah he had an Innocence, and he killed demons like we did, but when the war was over he explained everything to us. I think I might have known all along, kinda. Bookmen record history as it happens and without bias, and he was only on our side as a matter of convenience so as to record our war. He was never really on our side. He was only pretending." Again Rachel blinked owlishly, before rolling over and propping her chin up with a hand.

"You're wrong, you know." She said, her lips pursed in a way that made the lower one stick out a bit. Kanda raised an eyebrow and turned back to looking out the window. "That may have been how it started, but that's not how it finished. Bookman Junior took on the guise of Lavi as his name while he recorded his 49th Log, but by the time the war was over there wasn't a Bookman Junior anymore. There was only Lavi, the Exorcist."

"So then pretend and maybe the same thing will happen for you." The redhead's pursed lips broke out into a toothy grin at Kanda's words,a nd she rolled onto her back.

"And Allen called you slow." The Japanese teen stiffened, his lip curling slowly back as he reached for Mugen. "You're pretty deep for a guy that supposedly has hair for brains and a one-track mind that only focuses on slicing things, aren't you Yuu?"

"I'll cut you." He ground out, fingers latching around Mugen's scabbard and handle. Rachel held up a hand, one finger pointed at the ceiling.

"You can't, remember?" In a green-tinted flash, the tip of the lock of hair between the redhead's eyes fell onto the bridge of her nose. Her eyes grew wide, and they settled on the rather solid-looking if not still green form of Yuu Kanda, who stood next to her bed with his katana leveled at her head. And then he disappeared into a puff of smoke.

Rachel couldn't help it, she screamed. She flew to her feet and began jumping on her mattress, her arms flailing like a happy teenage fangirl. Maybe she couldn't go back in time, she decided through the delirium of happiness at the evolution of her power level, but she could still pretend.

* * *

**So yeah. It's a little short, but I like it. I'm not too sure where this plotbunny came from but my muse (The Goa'uld System Lord she is) forced me to write it. Yeeeesssss. **

**askjdfhkljasdhf I've been spazzing over Stargate recently, though I usually get this bad whenever I get on a Stargate kick. That usually happens every two and a half years or so. So don't worry. Yes, my muse has always been a Goa'uld. Yes, it's always been a System Lord. No, you had better not tell the SGC. So yeah, I'm sorry if this is a little wonky. Next couple of chapters (if I write them) will be a little more serious. A little. Probably not. Stupid Sheppard, you're making me just slightly silly in the head. **

**Next chapter: I have no idea. If my muse, Seshat, has anything to say about it (which she does, I'm just a host) then I'll be writing quite a bit.  
**


	4. Chapter 4

**Just a Good Book**

_Lt. Commander Richie_

**Disclaimer**: Goa'uld System Lord for a muse. I can has one. It sticks with me and refuses to let me do anything but what it wants to. BUT SO YEAH. This has been rotting on my hard drive for MONTHS. I kept looking at the end of it, trying to think up something to add to it, a reaction or something, but then I opened it up just now and realized that the reason I've been at a stalemate for the chapter was because there was nothing more to add!

_Chapter 4

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_

Rachel Leon was in some serious shit. It wasn't the kind of shit that you expected for a college student, like a slightly failing grade that would result in her full scholarship being taken away, no. She wasn't exactly want for money either, since she still had her job and her integrity as a worker wasn't under scrutiny. No, this was the really bad kind of shit. Her history teacher was starting to wonder about how she was managing to get perfect grades all across the board without going insane. This was the kind of shit that made the redhead want to run for cover.

The only problem was that she couldn't run. She was seated firmly in a plastic chair outside her history teacher's office, waiting for him to get done with a conference call to her Biochemistry, Trig and English Language and Composition teachers. Outside the window across from her the day was sunny, just a little shy of summer but not quite spring anymore. The redhead sighed, pulling her stereo-style headphones from her ears and letting them hang around her neck. Her newest black and green headband, crocheted for her by her roommate, strained to hold back the unruly red locks she sported.

For a moment, Rachel considered reaching into her pocket and drawing out the folded-up square that was the group photo of the Exorcists she loved like family. She considered animating them, asking them for help, maybe exerting the effort to make them solid enough for a comforting hug. If her history teacher found anything, anything at all wrong with her transcripts or her test scores or her homework or _anything_, he could ruin her. But as soon as she had the thought, explored its possibilities in her mind, she dismissed it. She didn't know how long she had.

"Miss Leon?" The older man that taught her history class had opened the door to his office at some point, and was giving her a concerned look from behind his horn-rimmed glasses. Rachel turned to look at him, her gloved hands pulling at the orange scarf she wore less for the warmth and more for the hell of the jokes she could make with the friends that she could conjure. "Rachel, why don't you come in and take a seat."

The redhead stood and walked into the office, her heavy black boots making a dull thump on the linoleum with each step. Each step took her closer to her doom. She wanted to bolt, to conjure something and run, to use the _Ink Speaker _to animate the Edo-period woodblock printing of a tiger that her professor had hanging on his wall as a distraction and make a mad as hell break for it. But the door clicked shut behind her, and she wasn't about to animate a tiger while she wasn't able to get out of the room. Rachel's next best option was to lie. That was the option she was going to take. She was pretty good at that option when it came down to it.

"Now I'm not your guidance counselor, but I want to talk to you about something." The hapless college student sat down in the chair across from her professor, one Dr. Edmund Jackson specializing in late nineteenth to early twenty-first century history, and she tried not to clasp her gloved hands nervously. The professor sat down in his own chair, adjusting his glasses before speaking. "How's everything at home?"

Rachel blinked several times, green eyes growing wider each time. She wasn't expecting this, she was expecting a confrontation. Hell, she had been expecting to be thrown out of the school. But her teachers were wondering if her home life was alright? Between her job at the library and the demands of her schoolwork, she had no home life beyond settling down on the couch on Monday nights with her roommate Kallen MacArthur and watching House.

"...Fine?" The redhead answered tentatively, her eyebrows knitting together in slight confusion. Her history teacher smiled and waved a hand, as though dismissing a fly.

"I only ask because your roommate, Kallen, she's been getting concerned for you." At this, Rachel couldn't help but tilt her head slightly to the side with a questioning expression much like Allen would do when he was extremely confused. "She brought it to my attention that you spend a lot of time simply sitting in the library. You do your job, yes, but you do it too well. You throw yourself into the work and you don't stop, even for food breaks, until you're done."

"I like books." Where was this going? This wasn't about her grades. Just what was going on? "I like books a lot, actually. I love books and I love history. I love learning about things." The history professor watched, a slow smile growing, as the redhead across the desk from him began to light up as she explained herself away. The smile she gained even reached her eyes, which was a rare feat when she was faced with her classrooms. "I love reading, I love learning about wars and peace and the parts between them and old kings and talking to people-"

Rachel paused, her tangent stopping. She swept a lock of blond and red hair out of her eyes, biting her lower lip in worry as she realized just what she had done. Even more so than before, she wanted to run and animate everything around her. She wanted to run away, don a coat of black and red and fight demons with her long-gone artificial family. But she had things to stand up to now, one of them being getting through college. Now if the good doctor hadn't noticed her slip-up...

"I was under the impression that there weren't very many people left over from the period of history that you specialize in, miss Leon." Shitshitshitshitshitshit. He was far too observant for his own good. If she had to be stuck with a history teacher, why did she have to be stuck with the one that actually knew what he was doing? A lifetime of incompetent teachers and the moment she got to college she got one worth the subject he was teaching.

"I don't talk to dead people, Space Monkey." Dr. Edmund Jackson, simply Dr. Jackson to a lot of people, narrowed his eyes at the very, _very _old joke. Every Stargate fan on campus, and a few off of it, had been making that joke at least once a week since 1997. Rachel caught the lighthearted glare and lowered her gaze to her fingers, trying hard not to giggle. "I talk to librarians, I talk to books, I talk to whatever I want to talk to."

"But do they talk back?" He jested, leaning back in his chair. The redhead across the desk laughed lightly, but almost nervously.

"Sometimes. If I want them to." Her smile was just disarming enough that the professor offered one back. "Is this all you wanted to ask about?" The smile on her professor's face immediately melted away, becoming serious in a stark contrast to his normal caring demeanor.

"No." Dr. Jackson shook his head, and reached over and handed a file to the student on the other side of the desk. "I'm not your guidance councilor, I've said that already. But your actual guidance councilor thinks that you might be becoming a psychiatric risk. She's apparently heard you talking to yourself about war and monsters. I'm not saying that she heard it in-context, but she wants to make sure you're not under too much stress or about to... Flip out on us or something."

Rachel couldn't help but blink once, twice, and again tilt her head to the side like Allen would do when he was confused. She probably looked a right sight to her history teacher. Finally she swore, shaking her head as she began to dig in one of her coat pockets. She finally latched her fingers around the little folded square she was looking for, and drew it out and began to unfold it. It probably wasn't the greatest of ideas to show her teacher, but if she didn't explain something to someone then she would be considered a psychiatric risk to the school and put on some kind of watch. That would make it so much harder to do much of anything.

"You guys can't put me on a psychiatric watch! I've got a perfectly valid reason for all of this." With a grin Rachel finished unfolding her precious group photo and slammed it onto the table in front of her teacher. "The Black Order." The history professor picked the picture up carefully, examining each and every triumphant face from the youngest Timothy to the oldest Bookman. "About eight or so months back I discovered a set of books in the public library downtown, seventeen in all. Inside was the chronicling of about four years of the tail end of a secret war against demons by an organization sanctioned by the church called the Black Order. Black Order Exorcists, the people that fought the demons and are the ones in the picture, fought demons with a substance called Innocence."

Dr. Jackson studied the picture intensely, focusing on the Rose Cross on each uniform with the look of someone with a vague recollection. The professor flipped the photo over, reading each signature and each wish with a careful eye. "This Innocence," he began, setting the picture back down, "it was used by each of these people to fight demons?"

"I know it doesn't sound that believable, but Allen didn't think it would be either and Lavi thinks it's kinda funny that I worry." As she said each name, Rachel pointed to each corresponding person.

"You talk to them?" Her professor asked, leaning forward to put his elbows on the desk. "And they talk back?" Rachel heaved a great sigh, she knew what was coming next. "You know that by saying that, you really aren't improving your chances of not being put on psychiatric watch?"

"Because by some kind of freak coincidence, an Innocence user that brings souls back from the dead through the written word managed to find a pretty complete history of the Black Order and everyone in it." Without hesitation, the redhead showed the tips of her fingers to her history professor. "It's called the _Ink Speaker_, and I can animate anything written or drawn. In the case of real people, it brings back souls." Dr. Jackson looked skeptical at best, an eyebrow raising at the crosses on each fingertip. "I could probably bring back someone who could explain this much better to you. But I can assure you, I'm not crazy."

"The Black Order has popped up around history before. I've seen that badge all those so-called Exorcists pictured there are wearing. But it's thought to be a historical hoax cooked up by a historian in the 1920's. Maybe you just fell for it." Rachel couldn't help but fume. Her nose scrunched up and she took the picture from the desk, setting it in her lap. "It was a well-thought-through hoax, though, and it explained some of history's larger unexplained bloodbaths. Many people believed it. Even I did. I certainly don-"

"Ink Speaker, activate." The redhead across from the history professor spat out, tips of her fingers resting across the picture in her lap. A green smoke began to pour from the page, falling to the ground like water before flowing back upwards again to form shapes of all varying heights. A little boy with scruffy hair in a pair of low ponytails and an old man with a single tuft of hair on his head. A pretty Asian girl with small pigtails, a young boy with light hair and a scar across one eye. A woman with dark circles under her eyes and a man with sharp teeth and a streak through his hair. Two tall boys, one with a headband and scarf and hoop earrings and the other with a long ponytail and bowl-cut bangs. A large and stockily-built black man with a pair of headphones and a decorative topknot. Dr. Jackson sat back, speechless. The room promptly erupted into chaos.

"Rachel!" The one with the eyepatch promptly called out, about to tackle the girl with a hug. He was immediately smacked by the short old man with the tuft of hair. The Asian girl was looking around with a confused expression, and the light-haired boy with the scar promptly yelled and pointed at the history professor. Everyone stopped immediately, looking at Dr. Jackson as though they had just realized he was there. Rachel didn't dare take her hands off the page. She had never tried bringing this many people back before.

"Meet the Exorcists of the Black Order." She said simply, trying and failing not to grin at the stupefied expression on her professor's face. "You can't tell anyone." She failed, and her grin stretched across her face from ear to ear.

* * *

**I dunno if there'll be a next chapter, so consider this the last one until another one gets published. I've been focusing on The Loveless for so long that DGM has basically fallen by the wayside. The part where it hasn't made much sense recently is kind of a deciding factor too. **

**ANYWAY. Yeah. Rachel Leon. She's pretty cool. Probably in some trouble, too. I really need to figure out if this is ever gonna go anywhere. It probably won't, so don't bother asking me about plot. **

**Reviews. I subsist upon them. Please leave them so that I may feed.  
**


	5. Chapter 5

**Just a Good Book**

_Lt. Commander Richie_

**Disclaimer: **Don't own it. Wouldn't it be fun if I did though? We'd have decent updates and a plot! No, wait a moment, that's not right. Judging by my ability to update my fanfiction, we wouldn't have that at all. Curses. And here I thought I had a good thing going.

**Chapter is probably best read on a smaller page width and a larger font size. That's just me and my horrible eyesight though. **

_Chapter 5  
_

_

* * *

-/-  
_

Kissing Tyki Mikk was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. His gray lips were soft and rather inviting, his hair was absolutely fantastic for threading fingers through and he could do things with his hands at the same time that would make a girl's head spin. For instance those hands were, at the moment, occupied with holding her at the waist and hitching one of her legs up his side. He had Rachel pressed between his hips and the kitchen counter, his hair in disarray and her tank top quickly riding up to expose pale white skin. The redhead made a noise that was completely undignified and rather wanton when the Noah stopped kissing her lips in favor of a spot right behind her-

Wait.

Hold on.

You have no idea how this situation came to be. You're probably really confused and want to know more. A _lot_ more, amirite? Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more and all that jazz.

It started with a sandwich.

Specifically, Rachel was trying to find the peanut butter. It wasn't in the pantry, it wasn't in the refrigerator, she had been loath to search the freezer but it hadn't been there either, and she was at a complete loss. She had two pieces of bread on the table, one devoid of topping and the other slathered in strawberry jelly. A glass of white milk sat next to the half-finished sandwich and the redhead was quickly becoming irate at her loss of crunchy Jif goodness. She leaned against the kitchen counter in her pajama shorts and a tank top, her thin legs exposed down to the mismatched socks she wore. At a loss as to where the jar could have gone, the redhead began to think back to when she had last seen it.

"There was… God, lesse. Kallen had it out, then I made a sandwich, and then she used it again, then that John Smith guy she brought over got it out to make smoothies, then…" Rachel counted off on her fingers as she tried to remember the journey of the jar of Jif. A sudden realization hit her, and she smacked her hand on the counter hard enough that she hissed and shook the offended appendage. She stopped still a moment later as the realization sunk in, biting out a curse and frowning. "Tyki put it away," she groused, looking like she had just tasted something sour.

Rachel hated bringing Tyki Mikk to life. As the Noah of Pleasure he could warp reality to whatever lengths he wanted. Despite her wishes he could walk through walls, become completely solid and even colorize himself. It really didn't help that he was probably the best-looking dead man the redhead had ever seen. He was in the running for best-looking living man too, actually, and that was even worse. But Rachel really wanted her sandwich, and she wasn't known for the best decisions when it came to men, peanut butter or reviving people from the dead with her Innocence. Plus the Noah had probably phased the jar halfway through the wall, so she might never get to it again without his assistance.

The redhead grumbled audibly as she stalked through the apartment to go find the Noah family photo. Last she'd seen it; it had been folded in the bottom of her sock drawer. She looked there first, was unable to find it, and then continued to her binders and then her bookcase. She finally found it folded carefully into the top drawer of her jewelry box, under a handful of loose change and a home-made bracelet of irregular potato pearls and gold charms. The creases were a century old, cracking and breaking completely in places. Rachel took it with her to the kitchen and carefully spread it out on the counter, a safe distance away from her half-finished sandwich, and gently tapped the face of Tyki Mikk with one Innocence-marked finger.

In the time since she had first discovered her ability to bring people back from books and pictures, Rachel's control over her powers had improved greatly. Instead of a steady pour of smoke from the picture that coalesced into a human form, the smoke pulled from the open air in an instant to form the finely-featured and aristocratic Noah. It was like watching a ghost disappear in reverse, fine wisps of green smoke jumping like lightning into position. Tyki Mikk blinked once, twice, his eyebrows rising up his forehead as he took in his surroundings. A flush of color exploded across his green form- his suit and hair turned black and his skin turned gray- and his presence in the room seemed to solidify. Rachel made a face- she had been afraid of this. Now he wouldn't leave until he wanted to.

"Where the hell did you hide my peanut butter?" she asked in a no-nonsense tone. Instead of answering the Noah pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and settled himself into it a way that, while completely innocent, probably should have been illegal. The smile he gave her then was a slow grin, coupled with a raised eyebrow that suggested she wasn't being leered at- she was being appreciated.

"Hello to you too, Eyepatch Girl," the Noah purred. The look Rachel gave him at that nickname was thick enough with sarcasm that it probably dripped a bit. She crossed her arms and cocked her hip to one side, gesturing with a nod of her head to her half-finished sandwich. The appreciating smile turned into a thousand-watt grin and the Noah shook his head in what seemed to be disbelief. "I _really _love this century," he laughed.

"What do you like more, the women of questionable morals or the lack of clothing on said women?" Rachel didn't uncross her arms from under her bust, but shifted so that she leaned against the edge of the counter. Her mismatched stocking feet struggled to find purchase on the linoleum, but she found a balance and managed to stay there while she stared down the Noah at her kitchen table. Tyki shrugged and shifted to get comfortable in his seat, finally undoing his suit jacket to let it hang open while he leaned back in the spindly wooden chair.

"The questionable morals are a constant no matter where- or _when_- you are," the Noah shrugged. His appreciative smile was back in full force though, and he fixed it on her with an intensity that made Rachel feel a tingle go up and down her spine. "I'm enjoying the clothing quite a bit, though," he said. The redhead resisted the urge to scoff loudly as he actually _waggled his eyebrows _at her.

"Good to know you're enjoying yourself; where'd you hide my peanut butter?" Tyki pointed at himself with an innocent-looking expression and Rachel nodded.

"I didn't hide it, Eyepatch Girl," Rachel's look turned venomous and Tyki made a cross over his heart with a lazy gesture. "Swear. I put it exactly where you wanted me to last time I was here."

"Where was that, then?" Rachel asked. She hip-checked herself away from where she leaned on the counter, choosing instead to stand with her arms crossed and glare at the Noah once again. She had long since given up on getting the obstinate man to stop calling her by the infernal nickname he had given her.

"Second cupboard," Tyki began, "top shelf-"

"On the left behind the jar of macaroni," the redhead intoned. Of course it was there- she had already looked there, but now that she remembered telling the Noah that she also realized that she had been looking right at it. She slapped a hand to her forehead and drug it down her face, distorting her features until she let go and crossed the kitchen to open the cupboard in question. With a slight stretch, during which she could almost feel Tyki's eyes on her like a physical sensation, Rachel retrieved her prize and brought it to the counter. A few moments longer and she had a finished sandwich in her hands and a smile on her face. She took a large bite and chewed thoughtfully, nodding in apparent satisfaction at a job well done.

"That it, then?" Rachel looked up from her sandwich to see that Tyki had gotten up and now stood on the other side of the kitchen island from her. He leaned on his hands against the edge of the counter, his long ponytail falling over one shoulder and framing his gray face with black curls. At some point he had divested himself of his suit jacket, and with that gone it was easier to see that the top few buttons of his shirt were undone. The effect was rather dashing, and one of Rachel's eyebrows rose as she continued to chew. "You brought me back from the dead to find the peanut butter?"

"Fahahehtehsnhurhohess, heh," the redhead attempted to speak around her bite of sandwich. She took a drink from the glass of milk on the counter and swallowed, trying again. "For all intents and purposes, yeah." Rachel took another bite of her sandwich and smiled at the Noah, her cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk's as she chewed.

Tyki made a show of looking mildly surprised, pushing himself up to a standing position from where he leaned against the counter. "What?" Rachel asked around her mouthful of sandwich. She swallowed thickly and took a sip from her glass of milk.

"Nothing," Tyki shrugged. "I thought Exorcists didn't use their powers for personal gain, that's all." Rachel's eyes narrowed at the gray-skinned man, and she took another bite of her sandwich with a ferocity that had frightening implications.

"I'm not an Exorcist," she bit out after she swallowed. The redhead licked excess jam from her lips and took another drink, finally stuffing the last piece of sandwich into her mouth and chewing. "The war's been over a long time, Tyki Mikk. You lost." Her sandwich finished, Rachel balled up the paper towel the bread had sat on and turned to put her empty glass in the sink. "Besides- if there's nothing left to Exorcise, how can I be an Exor-"

As Rachel turned around from the sink to face the Noah once again, she found herself face-to-face with him. Small wisps of smoke still curled from his shoulders, and with that she surmised that he had walked through the kitchen island to get to her. God, this had been a horrible idea. The Noah of Pleasure for a sandwich? What had she been thinking?

Her mind promptly shorted out as Tyki reached forward and drug his thumb along her lower lip and then stuck the digit in his mouth.

"Good jam," he offered as an explanation. Rachel nodded absently, blinking several times in blank confusion.

"My uncle makes it," she finally said. The Noah looked thoughtful as he nodded in understanding. All along her exposed skin Rachel could feel an electric tingle from the close proximity she had to the gray-skinned man. The tingle became a sizzle as she took half a step back and bumped into the counter, followed by Tyki as he further invaded her personal space. "Thought Noah hated Exorcists- wanted to kill 'em," the redhead choked out. Yes, definitely regretting bringing back the man that had reached into Allen's chest and put a hole in his heart with a flesh-eating butterfly. She was going to die because she wanted a sandwich.

"War's been over a long time," the Noah purred. Actually purred. Like a great big predatory cat. Like, like a sexual panther or something.

_Oh god_, Rachel figured, _I'm about to be killed by Casanova's gray-skinned murderous cousin. _Of course she didn't say it out loud, but the feeling must have shown on her face because Tyki's face broke into a slow smile. "What?" the redhead demanded. She refused to shake despite the circumstances, and stood her ground in what she figured was a brave staving-off of the inevitable.

"You've still got a bit of jam," the Noah said. Rachel began to reach up to wipe it away, but a gray hand snaked out and grabbed her at the wrist. She looked down at the hand that held her, and then back up with a furrowed brow.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" she asked. Tyki fixed her with a look that implied she might be a bit slow. Rachel returned the look, knowing full well that the man had never attended a day of school in his life like the rest of the 19th century Portuguese peasantry.

"Getting that bit of jam, obviously. No sense letting something that good go to waste," his voice had taken on a tone that made a shiver crawl down Rachel's spine in a way that she decided she liked quite a bit. She started slightly as his free hand came to rest somewhere between her cheek and the space below her ear, but otherwise remained relatively calm.

And that's basically how (barring a few confusing seconds in which neither party knew quite who leaned in first) the situation you first encountered came about.

So yes.

Kissing Tyki Mikk was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Every girl should get to do it at least once in her life. It started out slow, like these things usually do, and Rachel even pushed the Noah back about six inches for a moment while she tried to figure out just what the hell she was doing. But then the thumb resting on her cheek brushed at her skin in a rather delightful sensation and she pulled him forward again, the kiss beginning anew. Tyki let go of the wrist he held in order to grab the redhead by the waist and pull her flush against him, leaving her free to tangle both hands in his curly hair.

At some point one of the Noah's hands ended up sliding down her hip to her thigh, pulling her leg up to rest somewhere near his hip. With a careful roll of those hips he made Rachel gasp, and he took the chance to deepen the kiss. Between vague noises of appreciation and the occasional tug on long black hair Tyki managed to get Rachel's shirt most of the way up her torso to expose pale skin. The redhead made a rather vocal note of her approval when he broke the kiss in favor of somewhere right behind one of her ears. If she'd had an idle thought to spare, Rachel probably would have worried about covering up any marks the Noah was making on her neck- but she didn't, and so she simply gave a breathy sigh and tightened her grip in his hair.

Of course Tyki's attention eventually returned to her lips, and the kiss continued uninterrupted. Rachel rolled her hips into his as she felt cool fingers slide down her spine, and the Noah's concentration was lost long enough that he became slightly transparent. In a wisp of smoke he was suddenly gone, his control over the power of the Ink Speaker nullified by surprise and feminine wiles. Rachel slid down to the floor and sat splayed on the linoleum for a moment, her back against a low cupboard door and her hands coming up to push her hair from her eyes.

"Buh," she finally managed to say. It was rather intelligent, she figured, given the ordeal she had just been through. Oh, and what an ordeal it had been. "Never bringing Tyki back ever again," she announced to the peanut butter jar that still sat on the counter.

She figured this time she meant it, too. Really.

-/-

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-/-

**HOLY SHIT DUDES. AN UPDATE. THIS SHIT IS LIKE, CRAZY. **

**So yeah. I was watching Secret Diary of a Call Girl and Billie Piper being naked and witty made me want to write something sexy. Then DGM updated, and I was like "H-holy shit, I forgot how amazingly beautiful Tyki was ohmygod" and then inspiration hit me and I just sort of started writing and oh god I have a paper due in nine hours what am I doing.**

**This is not an official pairing for this fiction. It's just a one-off unless I decide I need to write more sexy things. So you never know. If I write any more it'll probably be Lenalee and Rachel being bros or maybe Cross for the hell of it. **

**But so yeah. I don't even remember the last time I updated this. I don't think I want to know. You can tell it's been a while because my writing style has changed so drastically since the last chapter.  
**


	6. Chapter 6

**Just a Good Book**

_Lt. Commander Richie_

**Disclaimer: **Not mine. After going back and reading the manga though, I kinda wish it was. I mean, isn't that odd? Some of the manga has actually scared the hell out of me, and it's made me cry three or four times now, even though the same events in the anime didn't. The original art style the series was drawn in was perfect for high-octane nightmare fuel. I kinda wish it was still drawn that way. Of course then we would have derp Kanda and ugly Tyki, and Lenalee would still be Bigfoot, but whatever.

**Chapter is best read on 3/4 or 1/2 story width. **

_Chapter 6_

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-/-

Through the biting cold and the dark and the stillness, Rachel Leon was afraid. She could see her breath in the air in her apartment. The heating was broken and the lights wouldn't turn on. The landlord said he would call a repairman the next day. But that wasn't what had put fear in her heart and mind. It wasn't what had shaken her to the core.

It was the emptiness.

Whoever it was she was trying to bring back was empty and cold and nothing but a void in the fabric of the universe. Whatever it was her _Ink Speaker_ was touching, the feeling crept into her soul like a disease. The redhead blinked, and tears slid down her cheeks. Marked fingers came up and wiped at the liquid, confused as to where it had come from. To her eyes, everything seemed to move in slow motion. As if she was finally regaining control of her limbs, she slowly dropped the thick daguerreotype in her other hand. Like that the empty feeling was gone, and a rush of sound seemed to hit the girl's ears as she came back to what she figured was the world of the living. She sat cross-legged on her bed, half-covered by sheets and wearing a blue flannel nightie printed with stars.

"W-" she seemed to be having difficulty forming words, "what the hell was that," she finally bit out. The words were sharp in the cold darkness. With both hands Rachel wiped the tears from her cheeks, and then pushed her red hair up and out of her face. "What the helling hell was that, oh my god."

After a long time of reanimating spirits, Rachel found that each felt different. The Earl didn't feel like a vacuum- he was the warmth of family dinners and the hot forges of war. Cross Marian was a pleasurably sensual burn, though the redhead rarely talked to him because he tried to rifle through her cabinets for liquor. Road Kamelot was a crawl under her skin that made her itch for days, Jasdebi were a sudden feeling of paranoia that made her want to turn around and make sure there was nobody behind her. Lenalee was a wistful melancholy; Lavi was a distant feeling of remembered elation. Hell, Attila the Hun brought with him a sense of open plains as far as the eye could see- whatever she had just tried to bring back was in no way a soul.

Rachel gave in to the sudden urge to scratch at her arms, gooseflesh stinging under her longish blue nails. She left red lines on her skin, but in the dark she could barely tell. Her eyes fell on the shadowed form of the daguerreotype on the blankets in front of her, and she wrapped one of her hands in a blanket before picking it up again. Even just remembering the horrible emptiness- the absence of something that otherwise should have been there- made the short hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end.

Bringing about something without a soul was simple. Rachel could make baseball bats, chairs, forks, gloves, pencils- inanimate was much simpler than animate. It didn't even make her concentrate anymore; such was the level to which she had synchronized. Souls were simple as well- she had been able to do that from the very beginning. But as she grew to understand her power and shape its manifestation to her will, she began to get a handle on what summoning a soul actually felt like. When she first touched that daguerreotype, she was puzzled at the lack of manifestation. So she followed the feeling to its source to try and draw the soul out- but had been sucked in instead. There was a link there where a soul had once been. It wasn't there anymore.

Rachel forcibly chucked the antique portrait across the room, where it hit her venetian blinds with a loud clatter and fell to the ground. She cradled the hand that had held it like she had just been burned, and shrunk in on herself. Something had stolen the man in the portrait's soul, and she was very rightly afraid. With a shuffle she pulled her blankets over her head, huddling into a ball as she hugged her knees and tried very hard not to cry. The tears came anyway though, and the redhead blinked them away as best as she could in the darkness.

Eventually the redhead reached out of her blankets and tapped on the picture by her bedside table. Her hand darted back under the blankets and she pulled her knees closer, clinging dearly to the feel of her powers working correctly.

"Rachel?" the voice belonged to Allen, and for that Rachel was glad. She opened her mouth but words refused to form, and instead she finally managed to choke out something that almost sounded like a sob. In a rush of frigid air the redhead's blankets were pulled back, surprisingly solid hands pulling her to lean on a surprisingly solid chest. "Rachel, what happened?"

Rachel tried again to speak, but again only a shaky sob came forth. Instead she reached out and hugged the Exorcist, her fingers fisting in the smooth wool fabric of his uniform. The redhead took a few shaky but deep breaths before trying to speak again, swallowing thickly and blinking fresh tears from her green eyes. "I- I tried to bring…" she faltered, but steeled herself and tried again. "To bring someone back, but their soul-" again her voice caught as she remembered that sudden and all-encompassing void she had accidentally pulled herself into, "his soul was gone."

"Who?" Allen's arms tightened around her, and she could feel the sharp nails of his inactive Crown Clown hand digging into one of her legs. The redheaded girl took a shaky breath and blinked heavily, feeling fat teardrops slide down her cheeks into Allen's uniform.

"I- I don't know his name," she started. "Sometimes I look at daguerreotypes online to see if I can find Exorcists or members of the Order. T- the other day I found one of an Exorcist and I got it," here she paused, swallowing the lump in her throat before attempting to continue. "I tried- tried to use the _Ink Speaker _on it, but nothing happened. So I tried harder- followed the link I felt to the soul from the picture," here Rachel shrunk in on herself again, her numb fingers clenching harder into the black and red surface of the Exorcist's uniform. "I followed the link and there was _nothing_ there, Allen. Not a simple nothing, like- like there was nothing to begin with; it was a void that tried to suck me in and… and _drown_ me in silence. There used to be a soul there, but there isn't anymore."

Allen must have been looking for the daguerreotype, because he got up from the bed and crossed the room to the window. He crouched down and picked it up from the floor, holding the thick sepia-toned photograph up to the light of the city that filtered through the venetian blinds. When he couldn't make an identification in the wan light, he reached over and cracked the blinds open. The sallow light illuminated the stern gray face of a tall Germanic man, his black hair slicked back and his uniform sporting a high collar. When the white-haired boy turned back around, Rachel couldn't help but think that he looked immensely sad.

"He fell," Allen said. Confusion graced Rachel's face, and she used the heel of one hand to dry her eyes. Allen crossed the room and sat down on the covers next to her, the daguerreotype held flat so that it reflected the light from the window. "His name was Suman Dark, Rachel. He-" the boy Exorcist paused there, and it took a moment for Rachel to realize that he was shaking. "He betrayed the Order."

"Did you know him?" Rachel asked. To her surprise, Allen shook his head in the negative.

"I was only with the Order three months when he betrayed us. Before that, I'd never met him," Allen sighed and tilted the daguerreotype so that it became a reflective white with no details visible. Through her puffy eyes Rachel could see that the Exorcist looked wilted, his expression sad and wistful. Though she almost didn't want to know the answer, Rachel steeled herself to ask a question.

"What do you mean, '_fell_'?" she asked. Allen's expression turned dark, and she could see his gloved hand clench on the thick old photograph in the dim light.

"Suman bargained for his life with the lives of his comrades. He got six Exorcists killed. God and his Innocence _punished_ him for it," the white-haired boy spat out the words like they were poison. The transformation in the normally calm and cheerful Exorcist was alarming to Rachel, and she felt tears well back up in her eyes. She blinked them away and felt them slide down her cheeks. Before they could drip she wiped them off on the back of her wrist.

"Is that why…" she trailed off, unwilling to say what they both knew. "Is that what happens when you fall?" she asked instead. "Like… Like a Dementor's Kiss?" Allen shook his head and Rachel's eyebrows furrowed in tired confusion.

"You fall when you try to synchronize with an Innocence that isn't yours," he explained. His eyes looked weary and the smile that slowly crept onto his lips was bitter and sad. "Usually when you aren't synchronized with an Innocence you just can't use it- like an Equip-type. But Suman was a Parasite-type. When he couldn't synchronize he turned into a creature- a creature fueled by hate and rage. He wanted nothing more than to destroy."

"And when he turned into that creature-" Rachel trailed off again, her voice shallow and sad. She knew the answer, but she sought clarification all the same. Suddenly her fingers seemed foreign to her, like she no longer knew the substance that gave her power. She didn't, she supposed. Not really.

"Yeah." Allen confirmed.

In the creeping, frigid darkness of the bedroom Rachel held her hands out to look at them. She'd painted her fingernails a color called 'Police Box Blue', and it hid the bruise-colored skin of her nail beds. She turned her hands around and looked at the tips of her fingers- each one tipped with a small sliver of a black cross. She'd always thought they had been neat, interesting even. Now, in the darkness and the cold and the silence, they looked ugly and cruel. She started as Allen scooted over on the edge of the bed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders to pull her against his side.

"Why?" the redhead asked. Though she didn't look to see Allen's confusion, she still elaborated. "Why did he betray the Order?"

"He was a father, Rachel. He wanted to live so he could see his daughter again," the sad note in Allen's voice was painful and heavy. Rachel clenched her hands into fists hard enough that she probably left cuts on her palms. The two were silent for a while, listening to the screeches and horns of the city outside and looking away every time a car passed by the side alley and made the sallow light grow brighter. After what seemed like an eternity, Rachel unclenched her fists and held her fingers up so that she could see the crosses there clearly.

"The more I learn about Innocence- about Akuma and the Earl- about the Order- the less I want anything to do with it," she finally said. "I don't want to be part of your war, I don't want to fight a secret battle, I don't want any of it. Not anymore. Not if it means I can't even make up my own mind."

"Nobody was a willing participant," Allen sighed.

"_Exactly_," Rachel spat. She closed her hands into fists again, though this time she did it in a gentler motion that showed the pain she had caused herself. Her fingers were stiff from force, and they shook despite her best efforts. With one of those loose fists the redhead punched her mattress. Her angry huff was a cloud in the frigid room. Allen gave his own sigh and shook her cold and pale shoulder. Rachel shrugged his hand down to her elbow, not quite feeling like contact but also not wanting to exert the effort to get rid of it.

"…You were brave," Rachel finally said. The words were crisp in the darkness, punctuated by the flash of headlights through her window. "And I respect that. But neither side of your war was right. Evil might be subjective but so is good."

"Yeah, pretty much," Allen agreed. The resigned nonchalance he had as he said it gave the redhead pause.

"…So then why did you fight?" she wasn't usually a 1AM philosopher, but the skinny college girl was feeling achingly melancholic. Allen sighed again and shrugged, the motion making Rachel shift from side to side.

"The Akuma needed saving too," he reasoned. Rachel nodded absently, accepting the answer despite the weight it carried. The two fell back into a companionable silence, the redhead's momentary snap of rage quickly forgotten as she began to succumb to sleep. But the frigid silence unnerved her- kept her awake and thinking.

"It was just so empty," she muttered into Allen's side. The Exorcist leaned to look at her, a sad expression that was almost a smile gracing his features. "So empty and dark. I don't think I could ever side with something that did that to those that didn't agree with it." Allen nodded and rubbed her bare shoulder with his gloved hand. She shook the limb halfheartedly to dislodge him, but it didn't quite work.

"You're lucky," he sighed. "You'll never have to fight. You'll never run the risk of falling."

"Thank you," Rachel suddenly said. The words were without preamble and a bit rushed, and Allen looked confused as Rachel shakily sat up and turned to look at him. Her pale arms were without gooseflesh, and she was cold as ice from her exposure to the frigid apartment air. "And I'm sorry. Yuu was right back then- I shouldn't ever want to fight in your war. Nothing good came from being on either side."

Allen made a face at the mere notion of Kanda being right about anything, but he dropped it when he saw Rachel shiver violently. Instead he pulled her comforter up around her shoulders and closed it in front of her, making her into a human pile of blankets. The redhead smiled at him, but it was shaky and frigid and without much life behind it.

"You're still our comrade, though," Allen assured with a smile. The expression was kind and warm, even in the frigid darkness. It gave Rachel a sudden ache in her chest that felt like horror and acceptance and old wounds. Her frigid smile gained a painful edge, and she felt hot tears well up in her green eyes as she looked at the smiling Exorcist.

Unable to say much else, she simply nodded and ducked further into the blankets she'd been wrapped in.

-/-

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**Innocence is not happy fun time with wings. It is cruel and strange and fickle and sees only in black and white. I do not like it one bit.** **The manga, now that I've actually read all of it, is surprisingly frightening and wonderful and tear-jerking. I wish I'd read it before, all my DGM fiction before this could have been a thousand times better.**

**I know I promised Lenalee or Cross, but I just love Allen so much and Seshat was hissing in my ear to write about Rachel trying to bring back Suman Dark and I just had to do it and writing this felt just like writing older chapters of this and other DGM fiction I did years ago and it was only two years why am I nostalgia tripping oh my god. **

**Reviews are love.  
**


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